Title: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Now and Then
Abstract:
What the Wright brothers did on the 17th of December 1903 was a steppingstone for humanity in its quest to conquer the skies by flying machines of their own creation. A quest that started hundreds of years before with many attempts of human-powered flight mimicking the flapping-behavior of birds. After years full of trial, errors, and crashing bodies, humans converged to the solution of fixed-wing aircrafts for sustained flight and not flapping-wing ones.
Nowadays Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs and aka drones) have come a very long way in becoming smaller, cheaper, smarter, and closer to people. The advancements in the fields of miniaturized sensors, microprocessors, electric drives, and batteries have allowed the downscaling of UAVs to a great extent and simultaneously with lower costs.
In this presentation, we will take a journey through time to highlight how UAVs evolved throughout the years and what are the future trends.